And what a start it was! Let’s break down the changes that the opener offered us:

Welcome to Portland: As mention in our interview with Timothy Hutton, the team has moved to Portland, giving it a chance to use some cool new locations.

Dean Devlin and his team did a phenomenal job using the story to justify moving the team to the actual city the series has been shooting in for the last few seasons. They took full advantage of this right off the bat with the Evergreen Space and Aviation museum as the setting for this week’s con.

We Are Family: The team feels closer to one another. Hardison and Parker are officially dating, while Nate showed clear signs of his commitment to Sophie.

Was anyone else surprised that Parker seem to have the least amount of trouble adjusting? I’m guessing that her relationship with Archie was such that they moved around a lot, which would make her the most likely person to not be attached to a place. That said, I was surprised how attached to Boston Sophie was. A big part of grifting is being on the move. Seems like she would also be prone to moving about.

A List Guest Stars: If our first guest star of the season, Cary Elwes, is any indication, we are going to see some great appearances this summer.

Elwes did a terrific job of channeling Howard Hughes. While Hardison’s ability to simulate him flying the Spruce Goose pushed the boundaries of believability, it was still a lot of fun watching him confess to killing a man after his lawyer told him not to say anything.

Overall, I really enjoyed the first offering of this season and can’t wait to see how things unfold with the secret that Nate and Hardison are keeping. I have no clues as to what they might be hiding. What do you think it could be?

Follow Leverage

skyroom80 - the Spruce Goose was moved more than 10 years ago, I was living in LA (near Long Beach actually) when it was moved. It make the news all over the place! It really is in Oregon now.

skyroom80•July 19, 2012 04:37

Juat wanted to say that I, too, think Cary Elwes as a guest star portends greatness for this season! He was wonderful -- almost having too much fun in the role! And I'll forgive the show -- but the Spruce Goose is in Long Beach, California.

Thanks Foo for the kind words -- Part of my mistake was that I was watching/writing the review on the road after being at Comic Con the entire time and I was a bit brain fried... I thank everyone who caught my mistake, and yes QueenBee, the Spruce Goose in in McMinnville Oregon, which is 40 miles from Portland, but still close enough to be considered local to the film crew.

I liked it, I am not over excited with this episode, but it is a good and solid start in a new season. Please, give the reviewer a break, sometimes you are so sure about one thing you do not even bother to check. Oh, thanks SueK, I never watched Angel, so I would have missed this totally, I really like it when they do those things on shows, like the Star Trek comments from Will Wheaton :-D So I am looking forward to the next show!

I love the show, but, yes, I think they pushed the simulated flight of the Spruce Goose a little far. It was basically a steal of several episodes of Mission Impossible "The Train" from season 1 and "Submarine" from season 4. In those shows, the IMF uses speakers and hydraulics (and on the "The Train" movie projectors) to simulate a mode of transport. Part of the problem, I think is the confines of the short run time. In classic shows like MI, they had several more minutes of runtime to add some credibility to the tech so you'd buy it later on. They'd show the tech being used, although not in the same way that it's used in the mission. But it feels less like a rabbit out of a hat than did this one. The other issue here is that in MI, they usually knew what the mission was and had time to prepare. In this Leverage episode, they didn't know that the mark was going to lead them to the Spruce Goose, so they really didn't have much time to prep what they pulled off. It really stretched credibility a bit too far. And on MI, you sometimes saw the support apparatus the team had to help set up their missions. On leverage, it's just the grifters, which would make rigging the Spruce Goose and the subsequent scene difficult to believe time-wise.

It's bad enough the reviewer got the city wrong - Seattle, seriously?! - and then even said that they took advantage of the new location by filming at the Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum, which is located in McMinnvile, OR as we all know. By just checking the facts Seattle wouldn't have made sense, how about proofreading next time?

Eliot: Well, you just can't setup shop in the back of someone's restaurant.Hardison: Of course not. That's why I bought the Microbrewery. What? No he didn't?Parker: Yes, he did.Hardison: We brew our own beer now.Parker: Yeah, and we are calling it, Thief Juice. Tastes like bad guys.